In the first-season “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode “Skin of Evil”, the shuttlecraft carrying Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) crashes on a seemingly uninhabited alien world called Vagra II.
The Enterprise goes to rescue her, but finds that Troi’s crashed shuttle is being guarded by a mysterious living puddle of black tar.
The tar shapeshifts into a vaguely human form and calls itself Armus, the only inhabitant of this world.
Armus is seethingly cruel and takes pleasure in the death and suffering of the people it encounters.
It refuses to let Troi go, wanting to torment the Enterprise crew members who have beamed down to gather her. In one of the most notorious moments in “Star Trek” history, Lieutenant Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby) attempts to walk around Armus, and it zaps her with a mysterious psychic blast.
Yar is thrown several feet through the air, severely injured.
She is…
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